Poems can be a doorway into another world. Each one, a simple arrangement of otherwise ordinary words, that together evoke presence, wonder, possibility. So here is an invitation to pause, let the words wash over you and glimpse the world they offer you…
It’s a growing collection, and we’d love to hear which ones resonate with you and why, and find out about your favourites. Here is an index of our Words of Wonder.
Explore our Poetry Courses:
23 March 2025 – Poetry and Presence for Healing and Renewal
18 April 2025 – Easter Practice Day: Mystical Poetry and Mindfulness for the Love of Nature
19 May 2025 – Mindfulness Meets Mystical Poetry
A lover asked his beloved, Do you love yourself more than you love me? The beloved replied, I have died to myself and I live for you.I’ve disappeared from myself and my attributes. I am present only for you.I have forgotten all my learning, but from knowing you I have become a scholar.I have lost…
We plant seeds in the ground And dreams in the sky, Hoping that, someday, the roots of one Will meet the upstretched limbs of the other. It has not happened yet. We share the sky, all of us, the whole world: Together, we are a tribe of eyes that look upward, Even as we stand…
Change Said the sun to the moon, You cannot stay. Change Says the moon to the waters, All is flowing. Change Says the fields to the grass, Seed-time and harvest, Chaff and grain. You must change said, Said the worm to the bud, Though not to a rose, Petals fade That wings may rise Borne…
The time will come when, with elation you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror and each will smile at the other’s welcome, and say, sit here. Eat. You will love again the stranger who was your self. Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart to itself, to the…
I leant upon a coppice gate When Frost was spectre-grey, And Winter’s dregs made desolate The weakening eye of day. The tangled bine-stems scored the sky Like strings of broken lyres, And all mankind that haunted nigh Had sought their household fires. The land’s sharp features seemed to be The Century’s corpse outleant, His crypt…
Eat bread and understand comfort. Drink water, and understand delight. Visit the garden where the scarlet trumpets are opening their bodies for the hummingbirds who are drinking the sweetness, who are thrillingly gluttonous. For one thing leads to another. Soon you will notice how stones shine underfoot. Eventually tides will be the only calendar you…
Sitting under the mistletoe (Pale-green, fairy mistletoe), One last candle burning low, All the sleepy dancers gone, Just one candle burning on, Shadows lurking everywhere: Some one came, and kissed me there. Tired I was; my head would go Nodding under the mistletoe (Pale-green, fairy mistletoe), No footsteps came, no voice, but only, Just as…
Before you know what kindness really is you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment like salt in a weakened broth. What you held in your hand, what you counted and carefully saved, all this must go so you know how desolate the landscape can be between the regions of kindness. How…
I am a feather on the bright sky I am the blue horse that runs in the plain I am the fish that rolls, shining, in the water I am the shadow that follows a child I am the evening light, the lustre of meadows I am an eagle playing with the wind I am…
We have a beautiful mother Her hills are buffaloes Her buffaloes hills. We have a beautiful mother Her oceans are wombs Her wombs oceans. We have a beautiful mother Her teeth the white stones at the edge of the water the summer grasses her plentiful hair. We have a beautiful mother Her green lap immense…
I love the fitful gusts that shakes The casement all the day And from the mossy elm tree takes The faded leaf away Twirling it by the window-pane With thousand others down the lane I love to see the shaking twig Dance till the shut of eve The sparrow on the cottage rig Whose chirp…
I swear my way now will be to continue without plan or hope, to accept the drift of things, to shift from endless effort to joy in, say, that robin, plunging into the mossy shallows of my bird bath and splashing madly till the air shines with spray. Joy it will be, say, in Nancy,…
My beloved child, break your heart no longer. Each time you judge yourself you break your own heart. You stop feeding on the love, which is the wellspring of your vitality. The time has come, your time To live, to celebrate… and to see the goodness that you are… Let no one, no thing, no…
One day it’s the clouds, one day the mountains. One day the latest bloom of roses—the pure monochromes, the dazzling hybrids—inspiration for the cathedral’s round windows. Every now and then there’s the splendor of thought: the singular idea and its brilliant retinue— words, cadence, point of view, little gold arrows flitting between the lines. And…
Kingfisher: the colour-giver, fire-bringer, flame-flicker, river’s quiver. Ink-black bill, orange throat, and a quick blue back-gleaming feather-stream. Neat and still it sits on the snag of a stick, until with… Gold-flare, wing-fan, whipcrack the kingfisher – zingfisher, singfisher- Flashes down too fast to follow, quick and quicker carves its hollow In the water, slings its…
The eyes of the future are looking back at us, and they are praying that we might see beyond our own time. They are kneeling with hands clasped that we might act with restraint, that we might leave room for the life that is destined to come. To protect what is wild is to protect…
This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes As an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still treat each guest honourably. He may be…
There is no controlling life. Try corralling a lightning bolt, containing a tornado. Dam a stream and it will create a new channel. Resist, and the tide will sweep you off your feet. Allow, and grace will carry you to higher ground. The only safety lies in letting it all in – the wild and…
Let your eyes fall easy upon me, And gaze without intention or preconceived idea of what I am. My shape is not me, as yours is not you. There is more to it than that. More to it than meets the eye, or the precept. Think more of what I may be, of what I…
Kristine has been providing us with her wonderful Words of Wonder. Duncan and I are inspired by this and have decided to share some of our favourite poems, and those of our tutors and members too. This week we have a wonderful poem by Danna Faulds. This was introduced to me at my very first…
There is nothing more innocent than the still-unformed creature I find beneath the soil, neither of us knowing what it will become in the abundance of the planet. It makes a living only by remaining still in its niche. One day it might struggle out of its tender pearl of blind skin with a wing…
Clouds are flowing in the river, waves are flying in the sky. Life is laughing in a pebble. Does a pebble ever die? Flowers grow out of garbage, such a miracle to see. What seems dead and what seems dying makes for butterflies to be. Life is laughing in a pebble, flowers bathe in the…
grace gives me a day too beautiful I had thought to stay indoors & yet washing my dishes straightening my shelves finally throwing out the wilted onions shrunken garlic cloves I discover I am happy to be inside looking out. This, I think, is wealth. Just this choosing of how a beautiful day is spent.…
Love means to learn to look at yourself The way one looks at distant things For you are only one thing among many. And whoever sees that way heals his heart, Without knowing it, from various ills. A bird and a tree say to him: Friend. Then he wants to use himself and things So…
This magnificent refuge is inside you. Enter. Shatter the darkness that shrouds the doorway. Be bold. Be humble. Put away the incense and forget the incantations they taught you. Ask no permission from the authorities. Close your eyes and follow your breath to the still place that leads to the invisible path that leads you…
When despair for the world grows in meand I wake in the night at the least soundin fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,I go and lie down where the wood drakerests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.I come into the peace of wild thingswho do…
Love the earth like a mole,fur-near. Nearsighted,hold close the clods,their fine-print headlines.Pat them with soft hands — Like spades, but pink and loving; theybreak rock, nudge giants aside,affable plow.Fields are to touch;each day nuzzle your way. Tomorrow the world. by William Stafford Just back from teaching on Holy Isle, my earth-love is very much…
I Do not Want to step so quickly Over a beautiful line on God’s palm As I move through the earth’s Marketplace Today. I do not want to touch any object in this world Without my eyes testifying to the truth That everything is My Beloved. Something has happened To my understanding of…
Let go of what has passed. Let go of what may come. Let go of what is happening now. Don’t try to figure anything out. Don’t try to make anything happen. Relax, right now, and rest. by Tilopa (translated by Ken McLeod) These words from the 10th century Indian master Tilopa have clearly…
The stars fell through my window tonight AstonishedI got up They were everywhereCalling me Shiny bright and brilliantPeeping through the pinesPlaying peek-a-boo with the cloudsScattering diamonds everywhere Such Largesse How could I be so luckyTo be so loved by this good earth By Lauretta Santarossa I’m writing from Samye Ling this week where I’m…